LD34I7 



3417 



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ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT THE 






ON BEHALF OF THE 



BOARD OF TRUSTEES, 



ON 



OOIfc^IIVLIEII^CIEnVIIIEIETT JDJ^IT, J~XT2SrjE 29, 18S6, 



HON. J. W. CLAPP, 



A MEMBER OF THE BOARD. 



PUBLIC LEDGER STEAM BOOK AND JOB PRINTING OFFICE, NO. 13 MADISON STREET, MEMPHIS, TENN. 



ADDRESS 



DELIVERED AT THE 



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ON BEHALF OF THE 



BOARD OF TRUSTEES, 



ON 



cojvrnvcsisro^nycEisrT jdj^it, cttj^te 29, i866 : 




HON. 



J. W 



CLAPP, 



A MEMBER OF THE BOARD. 



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J, 



PUBLIC LEDGER STEAM BOOK AND JOB PRINTING OFFICE, NO. 13 MADISON STREET, MEMPHIS, TENN. 



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RESOLUTION 

O F T HE 

BOARD OF TRUSTEES. 

Resolved, That the thanks of the Board of Trustees are clue and 
are hereby tendered to the Hon. J. W. Clapp, a member of the Board, 
for the able and interesting Address delivered by him on behalf of the 
Board, in connection with the Commencement Exercises, and that the 
Board respectfully request of him a copy of his Address for publication. 






ADDRESS. 



After so long a suspension of the exercises of the University, 
and its reorganization under the auspices of what is, in many respects, 
a new regime, the Board of Trustees deemed it appropriate to signalize 
this re-commencement, if I may so designate it, by a public address 
from one of their own number, to be responded to by some member of 
the Faculty, selected by that body. The honor of representing them 
upon this occasion was conferred by the Board upon myself, and not 
being present when the appointment was made, I had no opportunity 
of declining it, as I should have felt compelled to do, until too late to 
make other arrangements, and am therefore here to-day, to vindicate, 
in the best manner I may, the wisdom of their selection. 

In discharging the duty assigned me, it is, I assure you, with no 
affected diffidence that I invite you to the humble entertainment which 
I have to offer, after the sumptuous intellectual repast which has, from 
day to day, during the present week, been spread before you ; but time 
and events have with me sadly sobered both head and heart, and 
whatever verdure may once have existed in the fields of fancy, is now 
withered, and all the flowers of rhetoric are faded and gone, and I can 
but offer for your consideration some homely and practical suggestions. 
Repugnant as it is to my tastes and feelings to discuss now questions 
touching upon our public affairs, I have felt that I could not well avoid 
doing so to some extent on the present occasion, and could not, perhaps, 
better meet the demands of the hour than by submitting some reflec- 
tions with reference to the great and vital changes that have recently 
occurred in our condition and circumstances, as individuals, and as a 
people, and with reference to the duties and responsibilities resting 
upon us, and especially upon our institutions of learning, and our young 
men, in this new phase of our social and industrial existence. 

In pursuing the line of remark thus indicated, I am not unmindful 
of the admonition, 



■" incedis per ignes, 



Suppositos cineri dolosi. 
But yet, in treading over these "treacherous embers," and amid still 
smoking ruins, I do not deem it necessary to preface anything I may 
say with either protestation or profession as to my motives or opinions, 
nor have I any fear that I shall give utterance to sentiments obnoxious 
to any just criticism, or otherwise do violence to the proprieties of the 
occasion. 



(4) 

With reference to the causes which produced that fratricidal strife. 
so mournfully calamitous in its results, it is not my intention now or 
here to speak. It is, however, but vindicating the truth of history, and 
the wisdom of the fathers, to state, that it grew out of no design or 
desire to change the form of government as originally established by 
them, nor out of any dissatisfaction with the Constitution itself, hut 
was the bloody sequel of a war of ideas which had been waged almost 
from the date of its adoption, as to the proj)er interpretation of that 
instrument, and which it was believed by us was so interpreted and 
administered by a dominant section as to threaten the practical sub- 
version of the government, and the inevitable destruction of those 
rights of person and property which it should be the end and object of 
all governments to foster and protect. 

Whether these apprehensions were well founded or not. and 
whether We were abstractly right or wrong in our theory of the 
functions and powers of government, State and Federal, or in the means 
to which we resorted to vindicate this theory, it is not my purpose to 
inquire. It is enough to know, that after years of bitter controversy, 
of crimination and recrimination, the theatre of strife was shifted from 
the hustings and the halls of legislation, to the camp and the battle-field, 
and that in the dread arbitrament of arms, w: the last argument" of 
States as well as of kings, a decision was pronounced against us at the 
cannon's mouth, from which there is no appeal. There the theory lie- 
entombed with the thousands of its martyrs who vainly sacrificed 
their lives in its defense, and. obeying the dictates of wisdom, let us 
turn sadly from the dark and dreary past to the contemplation of the 
present. 

Having in our brief and tragical experiment to establish an inde- 
pendent government, challenged the respect and admiration of the 
world, as well for wisdom in the cabinet as for prowess in arms, may we 
not justly insist that we are no less entitled to that respect and admi- 
ration for the manner in which we have borne ourselves, since, by the 
signal failure of that experiment, we became a vanquished and impov- 
erished people ? Adversity tests the virtues of a people as well as of an 
individual, and. looking to all the circumstances, it may be safely 
affirmed that there is not an instance in history that will in all respect- 
compare favorably with the spectacle which has been presented to the 
world by the people of these Southern States since they laid down their 
arms ; showing that, to whatever cause attributable, the superior civili- 
zation which we claimed was something more than an idle boast. 

Let us glance for a moment at some of the facts that support this 
position : — At the time when we abandoned our cause as hopeless, the 
country was an immense camp from one extremity to the other, and 
almost' our entire white male population, between the ages of seventeen 
and fifty belonged to some form of military organization : and when 
this mighty camp was broken up, and its tens of thousands were dis- 
banded, some of whom were veterans of a hundred fields, and all more 
or less accustomed to arms and to a soldier's habits ; — some of whom 
had been absent for years from home, and the ameliorating influences of 
social and domestic life ; — all of whom were penniless, and many of 
whom were about to return to beggared families and desecrated homes. 
— is there, or has there been another country, where, out of these 
materials, hostile and marauding bands would not have been formed. 



(5) 

eluding or defying the power of the government, or at least committing 
acts of insubordination and turbulence, requiring the exercise of mili- 
tary force for their repression ? And yet no armed organizations were 
formed beyond, perchance, a few outlaws banded together here and 
there for plunder only; not a gun has been fired hostile to the govern- 
ment ; and with the almost pardonable exception of a few instances, in 
which stores, formerly the property of the government for which these 
men had sacrificed their all, were appropriated, no riots or other viola- 
tions of the rights of person or property occurred. 

For four or five years the laws had been silent amid the clash of 
arms, and courts of justice had almost ceased to exist, and when the 
military authority, which had controlled everything, was subverted, 
and there was in fact no law, is there now, or has there been, another 
country or people where, under such circumstances, civil and social 
disorders, and indeed the wildest anarchy, would not have occurred? 
And yet, no sooner does the smoke of battle clear away, than with an 
instinctive love of law and order, communities are reorganized, the 
civil tribunals re-established, and — 

" Returning justice lifts aloft her scale." 

At the commencement of the conflict we were, in the aggregate, 
beyond controversy, the wealthiest people upon the globe, and possessed 
more of the elements of agricultural and commercial power and pros- 
perity. Many of our people had been reared in the lap of luxury, and 
a far larger proportion were surrounded with all the comforts of life in 
abundance, and exempt from the necessity of daily toil. Not only was 
our surplus wealth, so to speak, swallowed up by millions and thousands 
of millions in the devouring vortex of war, but almost every form of 
property was involved in indiscriminate destruction. Fences and 
houses were burned ; farms pillaged and devastated; mills and manu- 
factories destroyed ; commerce annihilated ; business paralyzed ; and 
our system of labor utterly subverted. Not only were those who had 
never known a want deprived of all the luxuries to which they had 
been accustomed, but thousands of our people were denied the comforts 
of life, and thousands more its very necessities, so that mere subsist- 
ence, in multitudes of cases, and sometimes in whole communities, was, 
and is yet, a question of startling import. Under calamities so appalling, 
where is there another people that would not have staggered into 
hopeless imbecility and despair ? And yet not only were these 
incredible losses and trials borne by our people with a heroic and 
sublime fortitude, but with a marvellous promptness they adapted 
themselves to the new condition of affairs, — the corner-stone of a new 
social and industrial edifice was laid, and soon the Phcenix, Prosperity, 
began to be evolved from the ashes of her former self. 

Looking to the impulsive character of our people, and to the intel- 
lectual power and impassioned eloquence for which our public men 
have been distinguished, where is there another country where syste- 
matic efforts would not have been made, covertly or openly, to cripple 
and embarrass the government that had compelled our allegiance, 
either by involving it in a war abroad, or in commotions and convulsions 
at home? And yet it maybe affirmed, that notwithstanding the trials 
to which it would almost appear that we are designedly subjected with 
a view to drive us to desperation, no such chivalrous fidelity to the 
terms of surrender has before been exhibited by an entire people ; and 



(6) 

I believe I give utterance to a sentiment that will find its echo, not only 
in this hall, but from the Potomac to the Eio Grande, when I express 
the opinion, that had the feeling common to our people when and after 
we laid down our arms, been rightly appreciated, and at all recipro- 
cated ; had that forbearance and magnanimity which we experienced 
from those who met us in the shock of battle been exhibited also in 
civil and political life; had the wise and generous statesmanship which 
has made the Executive department of the government honored and 
illustrious at home and abroad, been responded to by the legislative 
department, that government would to-day be stronger in the affections 
of the whole people, and the Union would give greater assurance of 
perpetuity than at any former period of its existence. 

Strange it is, that if those who advocate and adopt the punitive 
and unrelenting policy to which I allude, are really what they profess 
to be, friends of the Union and of the country, they do not profit by 
the teachings of all history, and learn that in the moral as well as the 
material world, like produces like : — that whilst the exercise of passion, 
prejudice, and vindictive power never fail to exasperate and alienate, 
and to perpetuate a conflict of opinion, rendering truth and innocence 
more resolute and uncompromising ; falsehood and error more persistent 
and dangerous ; on the other hand, the exhibition of mercy,' moderation 
and magnanimity produce a corresponding gentleness in the subject of 
their action, and if they do not convince and convert, at least disarm 
opposition, and secure confidence and co-operation. 

Were there not, in the providence of G-od, a man placed at the 
head of public affairs who knows how to appreciate the character and 
professions of the Southern people ; who knows that although we may 
be impulsive and wrong in our opinions and action, we are, at least, 
incapable of treachery and dissimulation ; a man of enlarged and 
comprehensive views, who can rise above the pestilential atmos- 
phere of party to vindicate a principle; one of that inflexibility 
of purpose that is now required to stand unmoved at the helm, and 
hold the quivering ship upon her course until she outrides the storm, 
we might well despair, not only of any amelioration of our condition, 
but of the Republic itself, and of constitutional liberty, which would 
inevitably become the victim of a suicidal and remorseless fanaticism. 

The manner in which the Southern heart has expanded, and its 
respect and confidence have been extended to one who, when but little 
more than twelve months since he was unexpectedly called to the 
position he now occupies, was unquestionably the most obnoxious of all 
men to the great mass of the Southern people, proves incontestably 
what I have suggested as to the effect of a like conciliatory policy on 
the part of the legislative branch of the government. 

I do not mean to say, that, as the result of that policy, social and 
sectional distinctions would have been at once obliterated ; that an 
immediate balm would have been applied to bleeding and broken hearts ; 
that we would have been false to the memory of our lamented dead, or 
have ceased to honor our venerated living ; or that the oppressive sense 
of a great public sorrow would have been at once removed ; nor do I 
mean that the natural antipathies of race, transmitted from the deluge 
down, would speedily disappear. Nor is it necessary, that in order to 
vindicate what is termed our loyalty ', we should become social monsters, 
stifling the instincts of our natures, ignoring the claims of friendship 



(7) 

and the ties of blood, and degrading ourselves to the level of an inferior 
race. Those who are so swayed by passion, and so dead to every 
generous emotion, as to make a compliance with these unnatural 
demands a test of our allegiance, or the evidence of our fealty to the 
government, would be satisfied with no sacrifice we could make, however 
great, nor with any suffering Ave might endure. We have already, as I 
have shown, given the most ample proof of the sincerity of our profes- 
sions : enough to justify the conviction with every unbiassed mind, that 
had the policy of the Executive been the policy of the government, we 
would to-day be, practically and politically, a reunited people, working 
earnestly together for the common good of the country, and presenting 
to the world a front unbroken and invincible. 

But whatever has been or may be the action of the Federal 
government with reference to the Southern States, it cannot release the 
people, of those States from the duty and the necessity of gathering up, 
as far as practicable, and applying to the best advantage, the fragments 
that remain of our former prosperity, and of prosecuting vigorously 
the great work of social and economical regeneration upon which we 
have entered. 

At the very threshold of this work we are confronted by a problem 
of momentous import, upon the solution of which depends very greatly 
the welfare of ourselves and of posterity, — as to our present and future 
relations toward that portion of our population whose civil, and to some 
extent political, status has been changed by the results of the war. 

The emancipation of the negro population was from the first 
accepted by us in good faith as a fixed and irrevocable event ; and 
whilst perhaps there are very few who would voluntarily have com 
sented to the relinquishment of this species of property, there are, I 
believe, equally as few who really desire the restoration of slavery, and 
if submitted to the popular vote in any one of the late slaveholding 
States, the proposition would, no doubt, be rejected by an overwhelming 
majority. 

The question that now occasions us the deepest solicitude is not 
one touching the loss of property, stupendous as that was, resulting 
from the destruction of the relation of master and slave, but the one of 
far greater significance, whether it be practicable for the two races to 
live together advantageously and harmoniously in any other relation ? 
The assertion, sometimes made, that there is any special ill-feeling or 
grudge between the immediate parties to this former relation, is wholly 
unfounded, and is the result of either ignorance or malice. On the 
contrary, the negro finds that where he once had a kind, considerate 
master, that old master is still his truest and best friend, and the 
strongest manifestations of repugnance that have been developed thus 
far are unquestionably between the negro and that portion of our white 
population who were not slaveholders, and in communities where the 
slave population was the most sparse, and where, it may be added, the 
white population are now the most intensely loyal. 

Nor is this apparent paradox wanting in a satisfactory explanation ; 
for those who were brought most in contact with the negro, and who 
best understood his character, knew that as a race, and when not tam- 
pered with by mischief-makers, they were docile and affectionate, and 
not unfrequently exhibited the most unswerving fidelity, and the most 



(8) 

devoted attachments ; and whatever may be said to the disparagement 
of slavery as an institution, it is nevertheless true that the very circum- 
stances that resulted in its abolition will, throughout all future time, 
furnish its most triumphant vindication. 

So replete with cruelty and with intolerable oppression was this 
"relic of barbarism" said to be, that all that was necessary to its prompt 
and bloody extinction was, that an opportunity should present itself to 
the enslaved, race to throw off the yoke and to wreak their vengeance 
upon their oppressors ; and it was confidently predicted that the very 
first movement of the Federal forces towards an invasion of the slave 
States, coming as they did heralded by professions of friendship and 
proffers of deliverance, would be the signal for a general uprising, in 
which the awful tragedy of St. Domingo would be re-enacted upon a 
more gigantic scale, and with aggravated horrors. 

And yet to the surprise, perhaps it is not uncharitable to say, to 
the regret, of some at least who had made this prediction, during all 
that prolonged and fearful struggle in the progress of which almost every 
square league of slave territory was overrun, although the adult portion 
of our white male population was for the most part in the military or 
civil service, leaving their families and homes unprotected, not a solitary 
instance, I believe, of attempted insurrection occurred, and but few acts 
of individual violence, or of trespasses even upon property ; Avhilst the 
instances were innumerable in which these alleged victims of cruelty, 
with a fidelity unsurpassed, in spite of every influence that could be 
brought to bear upon them, adhered to the fortunes and the families of 
their owners through every variety of privation and suffering, and Avere 
ready to defend their persons and their property with their lives ; and 
of the comparatively insignificant number who joined the invading 
army, not one in a thousand was influenced by motives of revenge, nor 
by any fixed purpose, even to secure that boon of freedom, the value of 
which was represented to him with every possible exaggeration. Whilst 
these facts, creditable alike to master and servant, are remembered, it 
would be both unreasonable and unnatural that any special feeling of 
alienation or animosity should exist between them. 

At the same time it is undeniably true, that there are now causes 
of antagonism between the races which did not. and could not well exist 
in a condition of slavery. Then, each moved in its allotted sphere 
without collision or conflict. The negro represented our labor as well 
as our capital, and hence these usually clashing interests were wedded 
together in harmonious union. jS~oav, since this relation has been dis- 
solved, this contest between wages and labor will, and does necessarily 
exist here as elsewhere, and the employer and employee will deal with 
each other at arms-length, each taking advantage of the other's neces- 
sities. Moreover, the white laborer and the colored will be competitors 
in the struggle for employment, and this competition will naturally 
breed jealousy and collision. Besides all this, there is that antipathy 
of race, to which I have before alluded, which exists without reference 
to the past or present status of the negro among us, but is instinctive, 
universal, and ineradicable, and developes itself with perhaps as much 
intensity between some other races, as between the Caucasian and the 
Negro. 

ISToav the great law of ethnography, as illustrated in the experience of 
mankind, has demonstrated the fact that where two races of unequal 



capacity come in contact, the inferior can only be preserved from 
extinction by either an amalgamation with the superior, or by occu- 
pying the position of subordinates, and rendering submission and 
service to the superior. This law is as inexorable as fate, and no 
scheme of philanthropy, nor device of legislation, can prevent its 
operation. 

Where amalgamation, or to use a word of modern coinage, " mis- 
cegenation," rescues the inferior race from extermination, the result is 
a hybrid race, possessing usually the vices of both and the virtues of 
neither of the original races ; thus showing that this antipathy of race 
is a wise and beneficent provision of Providence, intended to preserve 
the purity of the higher types of mankind, and to promote the general 
good of the species. 

With reference to the amalgamation of the Caucasian and Negro 
races, there is such an invincible, universal repugnance that he who 
would seriously propose it at the North or the South, in the Old World 
or the New, would be regarded as a lunatic or a monster; and hence, as 
a logical sequence, there remains but the other alternative of the 
proposition, that whenever and wherever the two races collide, the 
inferior must succumb or perish. So inflexible is this law, that were 
the malignants in the country who seem to cherish an insane hatred 
towards their own color in the South, to succeed to the extent of their 
wishes in conferring a temporary ascendancy upon the negro and in 
investing him with all the property interests of the South, and the right 
of suffrage superadded, no sooner would this outside influence be with- 
drawn than this cob-house of a false sociology would fall to pieces, 
and in the restoration of the parties to their former respective positions, 
the great law of nature would vindicate its eternal supremacy. 

It is a mere begging of the question to assert that the superior 
capacity of the white man is owing to the negro's having been imbruted 
for generations by the institution of slavery. The difficulty remains to 
be met, — how was this advantage first acquired, and how has it hap- 
pened that always and everywhere this disparity has existed where the 
two races came in contact ? So universally true is this that the con- 
clusion is irresistible that the negro is an inferior not because of slavery, 
but he was enslaved because of his inferiority. 

Experience has also established the fact that, for the benefit of both 
races, it is not only necessary that the inferior should in a general sense 
be subordinate to the superior, but the latter must be clothed exclusively 
with the governing power, and must to a great extent regulate and 
direct the labor of the former. It is true that the negro has wrought 
miracles in the slaveholding States in developing the resources of the 
country, and as a great producer he has contributed incalculably to the 
progress of civilization, and to the material wealth of the country and 
the world; but let it be remembered that the labor by which these 
results were achieved, was systematized and directed by the intelligence 
of the white man, and that as a historic fact, no where, from the tropics 
to the poles, has it been found that systematic labor, agricultural at 
least, will be performed by the negro except upon compulsion. 

Now, if this supervising power is withheld, and three or four 
millions of helpless creatures are turned adrift to shift for themselves, 
with their strong passions, their mental imbecility, and their proverbial 
indolence, laying aside all antipathy of race and distinction of color, 



(10) 

and regarding it simply as a struggle for subsistence, what other fate is 
before them in their contest with the intelligence, the energy, and the 
industry of the white man, than that of destitution and death? 

To rescue them from this impending doom, they must cither be 
removed entirely beyond the reach of this collision and unequal compe- 
tition, as the Indian was, and placed where, it may be, they will soon 
lose all the benefits they have derived from their connection with us, 
and relapse into primitive barbarism, or they must remain the per- 
petual wards of the government, a horde of national paupers to be 
clothed. and fed at the public expense, an enormous burden upon the 
Treasury, and an incubus upon the prosperity of the country. 

The plan which would seem to be dictated alike by policy and true 
philanthropy is, that the two races here in the South should be left, 
without the surveillance and intermeddling of a third party, to work out 
together their respective destinies, and for each one to adapt itself to 
that level where the great law of moral gravitation will sooner or later 
inevitably place it. This plan, it is conceded, is, like everything human, 
liable to abuse, and may give rise to instances of hardship and injustice ; 
but if the two races are to live together, it is the only feasible mode by 
which collision and conflict can be avoided, the capacity of the negro 
for labor utilized, and he rendered a comparatively respectable member 
of community. 

But as the probability is that the policy adopted by the law-making- 
power at Washington will be adhered to, by which the negro will 
inevitably become more and more unreliable and inefficient as a laborer, 
prudence, if not an imperative necessity, requires that we should, in 
view of this contingency, make systematic and persevering efforts to 
fill up the channels of industry from other sources, and with those of 
our own color, who can be assimilated and identified with us a homo- 
geneous element both of prosperity and power ; treating the negro in 
the meantime with humanity and kindness, encouraging his mental and 
moral culture, and extending to him without stint or grudging all the 
rights to which he is properly entitled in his new condition, but at the 
same time preserving with jealous pertinacity a social barrier between 
him and us that shall be impassable and perpetual, for upon this 
depends our preservation as a people from a fate more deplorable than 
extermination itself. 

The topics to which I have invited the attention of this audience 
would not, I am aware, under ordinary circumstances, be deemed 
relevant or appropriate to an occasion like the present; but we are now 
emphaticalty in a transition state, both socially and politically, and 
these are questions affecting vitally our future, underlying in fact the 
foundations of our prosperity, if not of our very existence. It is proper 
and necessary, therefore, that the public mind should be directed to 
their consideration, and there is no place nor occasion more suitable 
than this, the focus of intelligence, where almost every portion of the 
State is represented, and where are these young men, upon whom will 
soon devolve the preservation and promotion of the interests of society, 
who are here for the purpose of being qualified for these high responsi- 
bilities, and for entering successfully upon the practical duties of life. 

The picture which I have hastily and imperfectly sketched of the 
condition of our affairs is sad indeed and discouraging, but not altogether 
hopeless ; and if we are to be excluded from the national councils as 



(11) 

political lepers, and from all participation in the government except in 
bearing its burdens, by those who would neither permit us to remain 
with them in safety nor to separate from them in peace, let us at least 
not be made the instruments of our own dishonor and degradation, but 
let us preserve our manhood unsullied, submitting with dignity and 
patience to ills we cannot avert, and only the more earnestly devoting 
our energies to the development of our resources, and the advancement 
of our local interests. We have indeed lost much, but we have not lost 
all. There are indestructible revenues which God has given us, moral 
and material, the value of which cannot be estimated, and which have 
survived the wreck of our fortunes, and the rapine and ravages of war. 
We have still the same blessed sky bending over us, with its alternation 
of sunshine and shower, — the same generous soil around us waiting to 
crown again the labors of our industry with its plenteous rewards, and 
whose grand staple, through all the vicissitudes of war and peace, is 
still the undisputed "king of commerce," and is at this very moment 
the great regulator of the national currency. We have still our unde- 
veloped and inexhaustible mineral resources of infinite variety and 
value ; the same unrivalled facilities for manufacturing ; and now that 
slave labor, that insuperable barrier to the introduction of foreign labor, 
no longer exists, there is no conceivable reason why, with our unequaled 
water power and our abundance and cheapness of fuel and food, the 
South should not, as I believe it will, become the great manufacturing 
centre of the globe, and the more vigorously we apply our industry in 
that direction, the sooner will we become independent of oppressive 
export duties by establishing our market at our own doors. 

And, moreover, as Southern capital must now seek new forms of 
investment, and we can no longer follow the infatuated policy of sub- 
jecting ourselves to privation and toil that we might conform to the 
established routine of making cotton, to get money, to buy negroes only 
to make more cotton, to purchase more negroes ; and as the planter, (or 
perhaps farmer is now a more appropriate term) will not in his curtailed 
operations require such large bodies of land as were heretofore neces- 
sary, may we not hope that our surplus means, comparativejy small 
though they may be, will be expended in a manner that will contribute 
far more than did our former abundance to the development of all our 
resources, moral and material, in diversifying our industry and render- 
ing us more self-sustaining as a people ; in ornamenting and beautifying 
our country with the evidences of taste and culture ; in rendering our 
homes more lovely and attractive ; in promoting our moral and intel- 
lectual aggrandizement, and inducing us to seek for happiness in its 
higher and more enduring sources than in the mere accumulation of 
wealth. And if we ourselves have to become the sons and daughters 
of toil, earning cur bread in the sweat of our face, instead of repining 
and desponding, let us be earnest and cheerful, feeling that there is a 
dignity in labor, a practical independence and self-approval which 
wealth cannot purchase, nor oppressive legislation destroy. 

Especially upon you, young gentlemen, I feel that I cannot too 
earnestly impress the thought that it is upon labor, patient, persistent 
labor yow must depend, not only for proficiency in your studies, and a 
reputable position in your classes here, but for any success you may 
hope to achieve hereafter in any of the pursuits of life. The trite 
maxim, "labor vincit omnia" is one the truth of which has been attested 



(12) 

throughout all time and in every department of human enterprise, and 
it is one that is to you now of paramount significance. Those ample 
resources upon which you have been accustomed to rely in your antici- 
pations of the future as enabling 3'ou, perchance, to lead a life of 
indolence and ease, have been swept away, and you have been thrown 
suddenly and rudely into the stream of life, and left to contend compar- 
atively unaided with its surging waters. 

Perhaps it is best for you that it should be so, for poverty, as a fine 
writer remarks, "is but as the pain of piercing a maiden's ear. when 
you hang precious jewels in the wound." Poverty and misfortune have 
been the stern artificers under whose exacting discipline have been 
formed the brightest characters that have graced the annals of mankind. 
These are the master refiners that separate the gold from the dross. — 
the finished sculptors under whose inspired chisel the rude block of 
marble becomes "a thing of beauty." to live forever in the admiration 
of the world, — the kind genii that disclose to us powers and resources 
we did not before know that we possessed, as 

" Darkness shows us worlds of light 
We never saw by day." 

One loss, however, you have sustained incident to the late war. 
which is irreparable, for it may justly be said that the three or four 
years immediately preceding the re-opening of this institution may. 
for all educational purposes, be regarded as stricken from your exist- 
ence. Xay, worse even than this, for in the scenes of that eventful 
interval, in which all of you were participants to a greater or less 
extent, much that you had previously acquired was lost sight of and 
forgotten. Those to whom has been confided the management of the 
University, both Trustees and Faculty, appreciating your peculiar 
disadvantages, and earnestly desiring to assist you in overcoming them 
as far as practicable, without changing the established curriculum of 
study, or intending to lower the standard of scholarship, endeavored to 
provide special means of instruction adapted to the exigency, and of 
which you have had the benefit. But forget not for a moment that the 
extent to which you will be profited by these means, if not depending 
entirely, certainly does for the most part upon yourselves. Property 
may be inherited, or obtained as the result of the labor of others, but 
knowledge can only be acquired by the personal effort of him who 
would possess it. 

There is nothing, perhaps, of which youth are so frequently 
reminded as of the value of time, and yet nothing of which, notwith- 
standing these admonitions, they continue to be so prodigal. To all of 
you the proper improvement of time is important, not only as deter- 
mining your reputation and relative status as students here, but as 
foreshadowing and shaping your future career ; but to those of you 
who have attained an age when under ordinary circumstances you 
would have completed your college course, but who, by the untoward 
events alluded to. now find yourselves far in the back-ground, the value 
of time is beyond all computation. To cheer and stimulate you to it- 
diligent improvement, I might refer you to scores of instances of those 
much further advanced in years than yourselves, and laboring under 
far greater disadvantages, who yet by an invincible energy of purpose, 
surmounted all obstacles, and stand out in history as the sentinels of 
progress to mark the pathway of successive generations. But to these 



(13) 

men, hours and minutes were the golden atoms of immortality that were 
gathered up and hoarded with more than a miser's care. If you desire 
to attain their eminence, you have but to emulate their example, and to 
adopt as your motto with reference to these precious, fleeting hours, 
that significant and solemn admonition which is inscribed upon the 
dial-plate at one of the leading universities of the Old World — u Per hint 
et imputantur /" 

The fable of the tortoise and the hare is intended to teach the value 
of perseverance, and you ma}' rest assured, my young friends, that 
success in life depends infinitely more upon extraordinary application 
than upon extraordinary gifts. Be not discouraged by difficulties that 
present themselves in your path, however formidable they may appear, 
for it will generally be found that they are magnified by your appre- 
hensions, as the forms of objects are distorted when seen through a 
mist, and you have but to go resolutely forward to find that they will 
vanish or recede as you approach. Who has not been impressed with 
this thought in journeying through a mountainous district, and especi- 
ally by railway? Hills mount on hills, and circling ridges begirt the 
horizon, seeming to preclude the possibility of further advance, but still 
the fieiy courser moves on, drawing after him his ponderous train, like 
the involutions of some colossal serpent, — now winding through some 
narrow defile. — now disappearing in the darkness of some yawning 
tunnel, — then emerging again into the light of day, and panting up 
some steep ascent ; the panorama, meanwhile, ever changing like the 
shifting figures of a huge kaleidoscope, — the vanquished genii of the 
mountain still receding and leaving one after another of the entrances 
to their strong-holds unguarded, until at length the summit-point is 
gained, and the triumphal car of conquering science goes thundering 
on its swift descent into smiling vales and fertile fields beyond ! 

But above and beyond all temporary success or intellectual tri- 
umphs you may achieve here or elsewhere, let integrity of character 
be prized as the pole-star of your destiny. This, it is true, will afford 
you no exemption from the poisonous tongue of defamation, for as that 
mighty wizard has taught us, who, with almost the touch of inspiration, 
has revealed the depravity as well as illustrated the dignity and glory 
of man, — 

" Be thou chaste as ice, as pure as snow, 
Thou shalt not escape calumny^' 

And as there ever have been, so there ever will be, envious and 
malignant natures who, without necessarily being corrupt themselves, 
have yet a very imperfect appreciation of the value of character, and 
recklessly assail the character of others without knowing or caring 
whether their accusations are true or false. There are those also, who, 
conscious of delinquency themselves, judge others by their own per- 
verted standard of morals, and seem to take it for granted that wherever 
there has been an exposure to temptation, the yielding to that temptation 
has been a matter of course, unless prevented by considerations of mere 
expediency. But thank God, that bad as human nature is, it is not all 
bad ! There are still living virtues that date back their origin to 
Paradise, and vindicate our alliance to Him in whose image we were 
created. An instinctive love of right because it is right : and he who 
possesses this high and ennobling attribute, whose conduct is shaped by 
an inflexible adherence to principle, rudely as he may be assailed, and 



(14) 

pained as his proud and sensitive nature may be by this assaiiment, has 
yet that within himself which will at last, not only bear him triumph- 
antly through the storm of detraction and persecution, but which will 
sustain and support him in that inevitable hour when he is summoned 
into the presence of the Omniscient Judge. 

The time may [soon come when my official connection with this 
University shall cease, and when I shall be no longer the citizen of a 
State amongst whose people I have lived for a quarter of a century, and 
the remarks that I am now making may perhaps be regarded as vale- 
dictory. But should this event occur, — caelum, non animum, mutabo; and 
never shall I cease to cherish an earnest and affectionate interest in 
your welfare, my young friends, and in the welfare of an institution 
with which I have been so long and so intimately connected ; and never, 
till life's last pulses beat, shall I or can I forget the tender associa- 
tions and strong attachments which bind me to a State in which so 
much of my youth and manhood have been passed. 

Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees, sad indeed will be the hour 
that shall separate me from you with whom I have been so long officially 
associated. That official life, extending through a period of perhaps 
some fifteen years, has been to me, and I believe to all of us, one of 
unalloyed satisfaction, and is, and ever will be, fragrant with the most 
pleasant memories. In all of our deliberations, differing as we often 
did in opinion, I remember not a solitary departure from an elevated 
and chivalrous courtesy in debate, nor a single incident to mar our 
fraternal fellowship. Of the measure of success that resulted from 
those deliberations, it becomes not us to speak. We have each of us, 
however, within our own breast, the assurance that we have been 
animated by an affectionate devotion to the interests of this institution, 
and have labored with an eye single to its welfare, and it is no mean 
tribute to our zeal and perseverance that it stands to-day the pride and 
boast of the State, second to none with reference to its equipments and 
its capacity for usefulness, which were of so rare a character as to excite 
the wonder and admiration of the invading foe, and to stay the uplifted 
hand of war whose fury spared but little else. Those happy reunions 
to which we have been accustomed to look forward in pleasing antici- 
pation as golden hours snatched from the jarring scenes of life, will 
occur to some of us perhaps no more, — but the recollection of them will 
survive, and ties that have been there cemented will be severed only 
by death. 

Upon you, gentlemen of the Faculty, it must for the most part 
depend as to the extent to which the capacity for usefulness possessed 
by this University shall be made available in the instruction of our 
youth. The position which you occupy here is one of pre-eminent 
dignity and responsibility, for whilst the shallow and conceited peda- 
gogue may properly continue to be an object of derision and merriment, 
the vocation of the teacher, in the proper acceptation of the word, has 
gained largely upon the public favor, and is justly regarded as one alike 
honorable and beneficent. 

To be entrusted with the culture and development of an immortal 
mind, — to inscribe characters upon the blank page of nature that can 
never be effaced, — to be instrumental in the formation of habits that 
must make or mar the destiny for time and for eternity, — to be placed 
in a position to shape the future of those upon whom the welfare of 



(15) 

communities or the fate of nations may depend ; surely this is a mission 
grand and holy, requiring rare endowments of head and heart. 

To show that you are capable of governing others by first govern- 
ing yourselves, — to administer discipline with firmness and yet without 
harshness, — to blend suavity of manners with dignity of deportment, so 
as to invite confidence and freedom of intercourse, and yet to repress 
familiarity, — to inspire youth with a respect for your capacity to impart 
instruction, and with confidenee in their capacity to receive it, — to 
discipline the moral as well as the intellectual faculties by fostering a 
love of those manly virtues that exalt and ennoble our nature, — to teach 
by example as well as precept our dependence upon, and our duty to 
the Great Author of our being, — in short, to " point to brighter worlds, 
and lead the way" — these are some of the qualities and qualifications, 
the duties and responsibilities, pertaining to the office of instructor of 
youth. 

It was because of your supposed fitness for the positions you occupy, 
that you, gentlemen, were selected by the Board for your respective 
chairs. It is due, however, both to yourselves and the Board to state, 
that although producing the most honorable testimonials of character 
and scholarship, some of you, we knew, were comparatively inexpe- 
rienced in the particular department to which you were assigned, and 
we knew further that in the performance of your duties you would be 
subjected to the most exacting criticism, for of all critics the student 
body is perhaps the least lenient. Should you stand the test of this 
severe ordeal, we knew that you would win the confidence and secure 
the respect and admiration of our impulsive and generous youth, and 
that your position would be one of usefulness and pleasure; but that 
on the other hand, should you fail in this respect, it would be of all 
others the most unsatisfactory and uncomfortable, and that you would 
not be long in severing a relation so distasteful and repugnant to a 
sensitive mind. As no demonstration of this latter kind has been made, 
the presumption may be indulged that you have found yourselves, and 
have been found by those who look to you for instruction, able to 
respond to the demands upon your respective positions, and that the 
interests of the institution are safe in your hands. 

But you, Mr. Chancellor, were no stranger to us, nor to this 
University, for almost from its very organization you were identified 
with its fortunes, and it is but simple justice to say that to no one more 
than to yourself was it indebted for its early success, and for its strong 
hold upon the public confidence. The regret with which we, at one 
time, surrendered you to what you regarded a call of imperative duty, 
was as sincere as the gratification with which we welcomed your return. 
The immediate descendant of one whose name is a synonym for educa- 
tional and administrative talent, no higher compliment can be paid you 
than to say that to the mantle of Moses Waddel you are no unworthy 
successor. Willingly therefore and with unanimity we responded to 
the expression of public sentiment, and installed you as the scholastic 
head of this institution. Satisfied that this mark of confidence could 
not have been more worthily bestowed, I commend you, Sir, and the 
seat of learning over which you preside, to the favor of Him whose 
servant you are, and fervently, from my heart of hearts, I bid you 
God-speed. 



(16) 

Greatly have I taxed your patience, kind friendg, one and all of 
you, yet bear with me a moment longer and I am done. In running 
my eye along those crowded seats, appropriated to the student body, it 
fails to catch the manly form of many a noble youth who was a member 
of this academic family when I last sat upon this platform ; and there is 
to-day the vacant seat in many a sorrowing household, and an aching 
void in many a bleeding heart, to tell us that we shall meet them here 
no more. Surely, surely we may be allowed the mournful privilege 
and pleasure of uttering for them a word of affectionate eulogy, and of 
paying to their memory the silent tribute of a tear; nor would any 
possessing manliness of soul object, were we to rear upon this campus 
the marble shaft, mute emblem of a love more durable, — broken if you 
choose, — as the sad memorial of their untimely end, and of that cause, 
now lost, in whose behalf they died. 

Died, some upon the bloody held, amidst the roar of battle; some in 
the comfortless and crowded hospital ; some, more fortunate, in the 
green and quiet country where the soothing voices of nature chanted 
their peaceful requiem. Died far, far from home, and from the loving- 
hearts in whose affections they were enshrined: — loving hearts that sat 
musing by the lonely hearth, humming, perhaps, some sad refrain, and 
checking the rising sigh that blended with a sob; hugging still the fond, 
delusive hope that soon they would hear upon the threshold the well- 
known footfall of him dearer to them than life, but whom they were to 
behold never again until a re-union shall occur that the shock of battle 
and the shaft of death shall never more disturb. 

Died, far from home, but not from friends, for there was that about 
those hero-boys that touched a gentle chord in every breast. When 
stricken down upon the field of death, the stern veteran himself would 
pause amid the heady fight to render to the dying youth the last sad 
offices of kindness; and when he lay upon a soldier's bunk, wasting 
with slow disease, or writhing in an agony of pain, a softer, holier 
ministry was there. A guardian angel, who assumed the form of 
Woman, hovered round his homely bed, and kept her ceaseless watch 
and ward as hour by hour he drifted to the dim, eternal shore. By her 
soft hand was his hard pillow smoothed ; gently she dressed his gaping 
wounds ; she fanned the fever from his burning brow, and held to his 
parched lips the soothing drink ; and when at last the struggle ceased, 
and he lay cold and still, she bathed his marble forehead with her tears, 
and ' : kissed him fondly for his mother's sake." And even though that 
form has. moldered back to earth, yet still she watches o'er his sleeping 
dust, and decorates his humble grave with evergreens and flowers, meet 
emblems of her gentle sex, whose devotion " sweeter is than life, and 
stronger e'en than death," 

" woman 

There's in thee much that we believe of Heaven ; 
Amazing brightness, purity, and truth, 
Eternal joy and everlasting love!" 

Dear as thou hast ever been to us, yet dearer now a thousand-fold, 
and, next to God, henceforth forevermore enshrined in every manly 
Southern heart! 






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